Baby, You're All That I Want
by TolkienScholar
Summary: Oneshot. Tag to Ep. 1x1: "Extreme Aggressor". Hotch knows there are FBI agents who can leave the office at the office, but he isn't one of them. He doesn't know how to be. And no matter how frustrating that fact may be to Haley, in truth, it's just another reason why he needs her more than anything.


**Disclaimer: I do not own **_**Criminal Minds**_**. No copyright infringement is intended. The title is a reference to the song "Heaven" by Bryan Adams.**

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**MC4A Challenges:** ToS; BAON; FPC; Fence; CM; Ship  
**Individual Challenges:** Short Jog (N); New Fandom Smell (Y); Brush (N); Seeds (N); Wheels Up (N); Rian-Russo Inversion (N); Misunderstood (N); Team Player (Y); Shipmas (N); Themes & Things A (Love; N); Themes & Things B (Guilt; N); Tissue Warning (N)  
**Representations:** Aaron Hotchner; Haley Hotchner; Hotchner Family; Behavioral Profiling; Workaholic; Pregnancy; Mild Petting; Pillow Talk  
**Bonus Challenges:** Second Verse (Middle Name, Spinning Plates, Not a Lamp); Chorus (Tomorrow's Shade, Fizzy Lemonade)  
**Ship:** Hotch/Haley (Profilers of Penzance)  
**Prompt: **Spring Big List (Cuddling)  
**Word Count:** 1004

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**Tag to Ep. 1x1: "Extreme Aggressor"**

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Baby, You're All That I Want

"What are you thinking about?"

"Mm?" Hotch grunted, opening his eyes. "Oh, I was just thinking of baby names."

"Liar."

Hotch felt Haley's body shift away from him under the sheets. Chagrined, he waited as his wife went through the laborious process of adjusting herself so that she was facing him, the round expanse of their unborn son now between them as a reminder of where his mind ought to have been. No matter how hard he tried to keep himself in the moment—or, at the very least, to hide that his mind was elsewhere—she always knew.

"Is it that obvious?" he asked softly when she had settled.

"Always." She leaned forward to kiss him. "Aaron, you saved someone today. Can't you let that be enough? Just this once?"

He traced a hand along the side of her breast, veined and swollen with pregnancy, and yet still so beautiful to him. "It wasn't me who saved her. It was Gideon."

She gently slapped his hand away. "Aaron, just because we're in bed doesn't make talking about your work any sexier."

"I'm sorry."

There was a moment's silence as they stared into each other's eyes. Hotch tried to determine what he was seeing there: Disappointment? Anger? Sadness? He was a behavioral profiler; if any man could be expected to know what his wife was feeling, it ought to be him. And yet still, so often, Haley's emotions remained a mystery.

She sighed. "Talk to me. I know there's something weighing on you."

He felt a rush of relief—things always seemed to make more sense when he could talk about them with her—but it was tempered by a sense of shame. He knew there were agents who kept their work and home lives completely separate, who could shield their wives and children from everything they had to deal with at the office. He had always wished he could be that way. He just didn't know how.

"Aaron?" she prompted him.

"I can't get that report out of my head," he admitted. "The section chief is going to rely on my recommendation; it's essentially up to me to decide whether or not Agent Gideon stays in the field. It's a huge responsibility."

Haley nodded thoughtfully. "You said he was the one who saved that girl, right? Isn't that reason enough to say he's capable?"

"But you see, it's not that simple. He saved her, yes, but he acted recklessly, going in without communicating to his partner what he was doing, taunting the unsub—there are signs he might potentially still not be stable. If he loses it out in the field, if he goes off script and someone ends up getting hurt, that falls on me." Like those six agents getting killed had fallen on Gideon. In this job, decisions had serious consequences. One wrong step could lead to disaster.

"Okay, then why don't you recommend that he take some more time?"

"Then I would just be kicking the can down the road. Another month or two and I'd be looking at the same question all over again. And Haley…" Hotch's eyes fixed on a point on the wall behind her as scenes from the last two days flooded his mind. "I know you don't know them, but you should have seen my team on this case. Reid hasn't been this happy in six months—spouting obscure facts to anyone who would listen, spinning his chair around in the office like a little kid… He's never that comfortable around me. And Morgan—I know he's nervous, skeptical that Gideon will have another breakdown, but it's good for him to have Gideon there. He pushes him, makes him question his assumptions, takes the leaps Morgan isn't ready to make. With Gideon back… it's like suddenly, we're a team again."

Haley smiled sadly and reached up to run her hand through Hotch's hair, down the side of his face, down to his bare chest. "And what about you?" she asked. "Does having him back make things easier on you?"

Hotch laid his hand over hers. He thought about how it had felt to have a peer on the team again, someone else looking after the younger agents and helping with the million and one responsibilities that came with his job. The responsibilities Haley was always begging him to delegate but which he could never seem to find anyone to trust with. Except Gideon.

"It does."

"Then as far as I'm concerned, that's all the answer you need." Coyly, she added, "Now stop thinking about Agent Gideon while you're naked in bed with your wife!"

Hotch laughed and pulled her to him, and she laid her head in the crook of his neck. They lay pressed against each other, the bulge that was their son sandwiched between them. His perfect, precious family.

"Now, what are we going to call this little rascal?" he said, returning to the topic that had dominated their conversations in the last few weeks.

"Mm, what do you think of 'Jack'?" she murmured into his neck.

He pulled back, laughing. "Jack? Seriously?"

"Why, what's wrong with 'Jack'? I think it's cute."

"The same thing that was wrong with Jeffrey, Henry, and Charles."

"Come on, Aaron," Haley groaned. "There can't be a serial killer for every name in the baby book. Which one is it this time?"

"The original serial killer. Jack the Ripper."

She rolled her eyes. "You're impossible."

"What? Because I don't want to name my son after a man who killed and mutilated at least five women?"

"Because somehow every conversation I have with you somehow ends up being about killing and mutilating."

Hotch flinched. He'd failed again, brought his work into their personal lives again. No matter how hard he tried, it always came back. "I'm sorry." He lay back down and pulled her close to him again.

"Just think about it, all right?" she asked. "'Jack'?"

"All right," he whispered into her hair. Whatever it took to reassure her that she was everything to him.


End file.
